Heinrich Heine's Harzreise

Heinrich Heine's Harz journey

In his younger years, around 1842, Heine was just a student and fascinated by the romanticism as well as the rise of Prussia. What to do with these themes? He was a romanticist by heart, but this nationalist feeling…still, he looked for answers in the nature of the German hills of the Harz. He wrote about his walk on the Brocken mountain, and I followed him. He wrote poems, texts, and I took photographs – and printed them in Prussian blue cyanotype, a little joke Heine would have understood.Pinhole 4×5 negatives, contactprinted with cyanotype, in a hand made book with Heine’s texts.

The Harzreise

Heinrich Heine went to the Harz in his youth, and wandered by foot through the hills and towns. He wondered about all the monuments and relicts of the Prussians, which he saw as bad omens of Prussia's militaristic influence in Germany; and he admired nature, regarding it as a mirror for his soul. In my handmade book, fragments of his poem the 'Harzreise' are mingled with cyanotypes of pinhole negatives. It is suiting that cyanotype gives a Prussian blue colour....